Respect a military power that’s never actually won a war who instead prefers to use its citizens as target practice. Yeah, guess that’s legit.
Via Washington Post:
China staged the territory’s largest military parade ever Friday for the benefit of visiting President Xi Jinping, and as a none-too-subtle reminder to its residents of who’s their boss.
China is marking the 20th anniversary of Hong Kong’s handover from British rule with three days of official celebrations. But many people here are not inclined to join in the fun, believing a promise to grant the territory greater democracy has been broken, and that the values that Hong Kongers hold dear have been steadily eroded in recent years.
In 2014, hundreds of thousands of people took to the streets for several weeks to demand greater democracy in what became known as the Umbrella Revolution. When those demands were rejected out of hand, some young people began to say the unsayable, and argue that Hong Kong would be better off independent of China.
But Friday’s military parade, and a subsequent speech by Xi, served to underline China’s main argument — that the people of Hong Kong really have no choice but to accept the reality of life as part of a powerful nation under Communist Party rule.